Precocious puberty in children refers to the significant advancement of the age of onset of sexual development in children, which usually refers to the age at which the first characteristics of sexual characteristics (such as breast development in girls and enlargement of external genitalia in boys) appear more than two standard deviations earlier than the average age of normal children in both boys and girls. At present, it is still widely accepted worldwide that girls who present secondary sexual characteristics before the age of 8 and boys before the age of 9 can be clinically judged as having precocious puberty. Concubine Li, Department of Endocrinology, Shanghai Children’s Hospital
There is a clinical distinction between “true” and “false” precocious puberty in children.
The so-called “true precocious puberty”, also known as central precocious puberty, refers to the early activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, resulting in the maturation of gonadal development and function, which is completely consistent with the normal puberty maturation mechanism and can have certain fertility. In contrast, “pseudo-precocious puberty”, also known as peripheral precocious puberty, is a condition in which the peripheral blood levels of sex hormones are significantly elevated, leading to early development of sexual characteristics, but without fertility. Since it is not caused by the early activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, there is a clear and essential difference between the two.